ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least ten people lost their lives when a minibus carrying a group of mountaineers crashed into a valley in Iran, state media reported. A minibus transporting mountaineers from the city of Tabriz to tourist sites near Varzaghan in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on Friday “overturned and fell into one of the valleys” along the way, killing ten people, state news agency IRNA said. Eight people were pronounced dead at the scene. Emergency teams rushed another ten passengers to hospital, two of whom died due to the severity of their injuries, IRNA added. “If they had been wearing their seat belts, the number of dead and injured people would have been lower,” said Vahid Shadinia, spokesperson for the East Azerbaijan Emergency Department. Iran has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records. An average of 15,000 people lose their lives on the roads every year, according to forensics data. The deadly toll is blamed on bad driving habits, lax vehicle inspections, inferior vehicles, and a general disregard for traffic laws. The roads in Iran’s mountainous regions are particularly old and have not received proper maintenance for decades, according to a recent report by the traffic police.
